This invention relates to wire forming and spring making machines, and more particularly to clutch apparatus for drivably operating such wire forming machines.
There have been numerous attempts in the past to provide wire forming machines having clutch devices for feeding the wire. Most such prior art devices had only a single clutch and used electrically or magnetically-operated mechanisms to directly drive, i.e., engage and disengage, the single feed drive clutch, such as a step-motor, for example. Other such prior art wire forming devices were computer-operated or paper tape-operated to provide impulse feeding of the wire to the forming slides. In the prior machines having only a single clutch, there inherently could not be any wire feeding during that portion of the operating cycle when the feed clutch was returning to its start-up position. Most prior wire forming devices were relatively expensive, required complex clutch mechanisms, and required expensive tooling to perform intricate wire forming operations. Additionally, many such devices were difficult to set up and required extensive operator training.